Saturday B-Movie Nights

I love the Drive-In.  I've only been to one within the last twenty or so years but I've always enjoyed it. We used to go fairly often when I was a kid and I distinctly remember seeing The Fly and Return of the Jedi there at a young age (At two seperate times. That would be a messed up double feature.  Also the later film broke when the Ewoks showed up on screen).

There's something wonderful (magical?) about being outdoors in a car watching a large beam of light project other worlds onto a giant screen as the sun drops below the horizon, bathing the sky in a gradient of oranges and blues that fade up to black starry space.  A solemn radio tower blinking it's red light in repetition on the top of a hill in the distance.  I'm filled with a secret joy thinking about the people and town with it's glowing signs just beyond the screen. Head lights and tail lights tracing the roads. Those people are completely unaware of what they're missing. A two hour section of perfect time that won't ever happen again in the same way.  I guess those moments make me feel connected to everything and sneaking a peak to the sky mid-movie makes me think of our greater universe. Of other places and moments in time, across a billion other galaxies that I, like those towns people, will miss out on and which will never come again.  Who would have imagined the Drive-In as a religious experience?

In an attempt to recreate those kinds of feelings, I've been buying "B-Movies" for a number of years now with a secret desire to one day buy a projector and host B-Movie nights outside for friends and family.  As a side effect of that a number of months ago I started doing weekly ads and write-ups (some more clever than others) for my own made up Drive-In/Video Store which usually get posted to facebook (Video Stores being just as important and equally neglected). The Drive-In is haunted of course by the Phantom Projectionist that chooses our movies and keeps us running on time with other specters haunting the isles of our dvd and vhs collections.  With few exceptions we rarely show anything past the year 1999 on the big screen, when movies were still movies.

Write up example: "THIS SATURDAY at Atomic Age Drive-In and Videos! The world's only Haunted Drive-In and Video Store! Those pesky Martians return to plague the neighborhood in the 1953 classic “Invaders From Mars”! Film starts at 7pm. Also it’s TACODILLA night again. Stop in all night long for our patented Taco Quesadillas.  Atomic Age Drive-In and Videos, the films are five dollars a carload, the hauntings are free!"

I already spent most Saturday nights watching one or two movies a week but making ads for the Drive-In kind of gives me something more to look forward to at the end of the week.  The UFO's in the picture are new and present mostly because of this week's selection.

In related news, we're quickly becoming an entertainment destination as our real live fake Drive-In has recently since expanded to include a Kaiju themed miniature golf course and a famliy arcade. B-Movie themed, naturally.